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Jon vs. Kate - Whose Side Are You On?

by Susan Wagner (Subscribe to Susan Wagner's posts)
Aug 27th 2009 4:25PM

49Comments

Filed under: Celeb Parents, In The News


ParentDish and Life and Style magazine want to know: In the Gosselin divorce, whose side are you on these days?

Jon and Kate Gosselin's 9-year-old twins, Mady and Cara, started school today, and just like moms and dads across the country, the couple were at the bus stop to send the girls off for their first day of third grade. Except, of course, the Gosselins are not just like other moms and dads -- they're reality television stars in the midst of a much-discussed divorce.


Jon Gosselin, specifically, has been a topic of conversation this week, at least on one morning show: Ex-girlfriend -- and former Star magazine reporter -- Kate Major dished about her relationship with the 32-year-old dad of eight on CBS' The Early Show last week, describing Gosselin's behavior as "some bachelor romp or whatever you want to call it." Major -- a former reporter for the tabloid Star magazine -- says she quit her job to be with Gosselin, who promised to make her his personal assistant. But that didn't pan out, and neither did the relationship. "He did not act like an adult, or a grown man, or a father. It's sad, I think the fame has just gone to his head," Major told The Early Show.

So what's Jon Gosselin up to these days? He's got a new girlfriend and a new career. Gosselin has been dating 22-year-old Hailey Glassman, whose dad happens to be estranged wife Kate's plastic surgeon. The pair were in France in July for talks with Ed Hardy designer Christian Audigier about a line of kids' clothing that Gosselin is going to design. Rumor has it he will have his own kids -- all eight of them -- modeling the togs.

Meanwhile, Kate Gosselin was home in Pennsylvania with the kids, and has been spotted wearing her wedding ring.

Jon also has eight stitches in his head right now, after an incident where he reportedly banged into a cabinet door in the dark at the Gosselin home in Pennsylvania. Kate, on the other hand, is prepping for an upcoming spot as a guest host on The View. So Kate is working and Jon is crashing into things. Interesting.

The most interesting thing, though, is this: Jon Gosselin's post-separation behavior -- his hook ups with Kate Major and Hailey Glassman (who was photographed apparently passed out in a potted plant) and his late-night parties at swanky clubs -- seems to be swaying public opinion about his soon-to-be ex-wife. After all these years of thinking that Kate was the problem with that marriage, the weirdly-tressed mama is beginning to look like the mature, responsible one, while Jon is looking like one of those pathetic mid-life crisis guys, albeit a few years too early.

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Jon & Kate Gosselin
Today we all have a window into the Gosselin's life on TLC's "Jon and Kate Plus 8." And of course, part of peeking into someone else's life is hypothesizing how we might do things differently or better, because it's always easy to imagine what you would do in someone else's shoes. Especially now.
Bauer-Griffin

Kate Gosselin of Jon and Kate Plus 8

    Is it splitsville for the Gosselins?
    Kate Gosselin, star of TLC's hit show "Jon & Kate Plus 8," speaks Wednesday May 13, 2009, at the Frauenthal Center in Muskegon, Mich. We may be seeing a lot more of Kate solo, now that her marriage is collapsing.

    Dave Raczkowski, MLIVE.com / AP

    Jon and Kate Gosselin of the hit TLC show "Jon & Kate Plus 8" film an episode where they receive their own choppers (motorcycles) from the Orange County Choppers of the other TLC show, "American Chopper." The Gosselins go for a ride with the "American Chopper" cast before Kate later takes her custom pink bike for a ride of her own. All the while their children wander about the front lawn, not receiving much attention.

    Bauer-Griffin

    Over the past five years, Kate Gosselin's life has gone from miracle mom to reality TV train wreck. What's next for Gosselin and her family? Maybe a return to something closer to normal. Here, Gosselin is spotted pushing around one of her daughters in a shopping cart at Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

    Bauer-Griffin

    Kate Gosselin, seen here promoting her book "Multiple Blessings," seems to have made a life for herself that doesn't include husband Jon, who is reported to have been having an affair. But what about the kids?

    David Livingston, Getty Images

    Once upon a time, not so long ago, the Gosselins were our favorite reality tv family. It was hard not to love them -- after all, we all know how parenting changes us.

    Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you had one more child? How about two more? How about SIX more?

    Four years ago, Jon and Kate Gosselin went from being parents of two to parents of eight, and their lives have never been the same.

    Getty Images

    Today we all have a window into that life on TLC's Jon and Kate Plus 8. And of course, part of peeking into someone else's life is hypothesizing how we might do things differently or better, because it's always easy to imagine what you would do in someone else's shoes.

    What is harder to imagine is what it would really be like to walk in those other shoes -- what's it like to wake up every morning and be Kate Gosselin? ParentDish had a chance to ask her just that recently.

    TLC.Discovery.com

    In a normal week, the Gosselins have a television crew in their house about half the time, which is a lot, if you think about it. And while they will occasionally opt out of filming specific moments with their kids, the Gosselins have no editorial control over the show -- what you see is what you get, packaged by a team of folks at Discovery and TLC. But, Kate says, this is reality TV, and it accurately reflects life at the Gosselin house; nothing is pre-planned or made up. "We don't have time to memorize scripts," she jokes.

    I believe that.

    "We set out to show the truth," Kate says, "I couldn't watch it if it weren't true." What you see, in every televised moment, is precisely what is happening -- no stage directions or do-overs. This is life at the Gosselin house.

    Getty Images

    Kate Gosselin has gotten quite a bit of flak, both from the media and from viewers, for the way she treats her husband; the two are often shown bickering during the show. Kate says the criticisms don't bother her; she doesn't Google herself or make a practice of reading about herself on or off line. "Everyone has an opinion," she says, "and I'm only paying attention to my own." But she does admit that the way the show is edited affects how people see her family and her marriage. "If Jon and I have three spats over a two day period, they're going to edit it to make it look like those happened in the 22 minute period." The show is just a small slice of her family's life, after all.

    TLC.Discovery.com

    Kate is clearly focused not on what goes on outside her family but on her children. Her goal, she says, is to treat each child like an only child -- a hard thing to do when you're the mom of eight. "I hold myself to a very high standard," she says. At the same time, though, she's not trying to be perfect, or even to appear perfect to viewers of the show. She's just living her life.

    And yes, she's living it with television cameras in her house, but it's still her real life. Kate says that while the experience of being on television has changed her life, it hasn't changed who she is. She says the same about having eight children -- "It's hard to live through what we have lived through and not change. We are the same -- it's how people treat us" that is different.

    Getty Images

    One of the hardest things about her family, Kate says, is the noise; there are days when the older girls, Cara and Mady, come home from school and their reports about what they have done are drowned out by the noise of the sextuplets. More than anything, she says, she longs for peace and quiet -- otherwise, she would not change a thing about her life.

    Getty Images

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